


still my heart beats so slow

by PuckishSprite



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Eli Bouchard, Emotional Hurt, Inspired by Arcade Fire's cover of My Body is a Cage by Peter Gabriel, Jonah Magnus is a garbage lad stink man, Song Lyrics, Spoilers, body snatching woes, idrk how to tag this, my body is a cage, s4 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:40:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23635474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuckishSprite/pseuds/PuckishSprite
Summary: You can only hear him when Elias is singing, and Elias Bouchard does not sing.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	still my heart beats so slow

**Author's Note:**

> hi my name is levi and i am here to cause you pain on the subject of elias bouchard
> 
> this fandom has dragged me by the hair back into fic writing and i have fixated on this horrible bastard and the conjecture character i have formed from what little we know about him pre-possession by eyeballs, i refer to this soft sad fuckboy as eli bouchard and that'll be my tag for him going forward
> 
> i have a larger fic in the works but this one hit me late last night and i slammed it out and i'm posting it bc i can only make my partner rory suffer so much with me before i have to throw it at the wall like a fistful of rancid spaghetti. so. here it is. i hope you all like it. or hate it in a good way. i guess.
> 
> btw here's the song that inspired this ficlet thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdve08cG3pE

You can only hear him when Elias is singing, and Elias Bouchard does not sing. He is a man of decorum, well-respected, with a reputation to uphold. Not at all the type of man who would sing, not a bit. 

But he was, once. He did, once. He sang, and frequently. Given, maybe he was that guy who brought a guitar to the party, and was usually a bit too faded to play it well, but he could have been far more insufferable about it than he was. This had to do entirely with his singing, which was remarkably good, even when he was absolutely knackered. 

Of course, that was when his eyes were ~~the right~~ a different color.

Elias Bouchard does not sing, except for when he does, when he thinks he is entirely alone. It would not do for anyone to hear it, after all. And it is not so much that Elias sings, it is that he doesn’t stop himself from singing when he feels the impulse, doesn’t push down on it like he usually does. In the latest hours of the night, when there is no one in his Institute remaining but himself, he changes the music off of classical compositions, and he sings. Usually while he is doing something mindless, like filing or organizing or reordering his bookshelves. 

This is what he does tonight. His fingers find the buttons without looking; he doesn’t need to look, he Knows where they are.  
  
‘ _My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love, but my mind holds the key.’_

Faintly, he recognizes that this is a cover of a Peter Gabriel song, as performed by Arcade Fire. He isn’t sure why he knows this, he didn’t try to Know it, but the information comes to the surface all the same. His voice picks up without missing a beat.

“My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love, but my mind holds the key…”

And just like that, he’s singing, in the same clear and charming voice he’s always had, if aged by a quarter century. He doesn’t really notice, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t realize how much that voice trembles in time with the emotion of the song: the raw despair, the grief for a life you will never have, the anguish of a slow death in a prison with no exit.

“I’m standing on a stage of fear and self-doubt, it’s a hollow play, but they’ll clap anyway…”

 ~~Jonah~~ Elias tucks an accordion folder back into a drawer of his desk and moves to the next one, sorting through budget reports with disinterest while the song continues to ache in his ears.

“I’m living in an age that calls darkness light, though my language is dead, still the shapes fill my head… I’m living in an age whose name I don’t know, though the fear keeps me moving, still my heart beats so slow...”

His eyes have begun to sting, though this does not register for him until a droplet of water falls onto the spreadsheet he is examining. Immediately, Elias raises his head, looking up at the ceiling, expecting a crack of some kind in the roof. Nothing. He is briefly baffled, watching the drop soak into the paper, contorting the wood pulp and blurring the edges of the ink. Then he feels something warm and wet slide down his cheek, and ~~Jonah Magnus~~ Elias Bouchard realizes he is crying.

The wheels of his office chair whisper across the hardwood floor as he gets to his feet, reaching for a largely-untouched box of tissues sitting on a side table. His hand trembles slightly as he wipes at his face with vexation. 

“My body is a cage, we take what we’re given, just because you’re forgotten, that don’t mean you’re forgiven…”

It’s odd, not feeling entirely in control of his own actions. But he decides it is harmless, and continues his work. Now that he’s noticed the tears, it is easy to push back against the impulse, and no more are shed.

_‘I’m living in an age that screams my name at night, but when I get to the doorway, there’s no one in sight…’_

“I’m living in an age that laughs when I’m dancing with the one I love, but my mind holds the key…”

His chest aches dully, though for what reason, he is unsure. He stops working, checks his pulse. He is not having a heart attack, and a quick evaluation of the rest of his body assures him that nothing is truly wrong, so he ignores it, as he does most inconvenient but ultimately irrelevant things. 

_'Set my spirit free…’_

“Set my spirit free… _Set my body free...”_

This, specifically, is the line that brings him clarity. Setting down his pen, he laughs, genuinely laughs, turning off the music as the song repeats these lyrics. “Now, now,” he murmurs under his breath, seemingly to the empty air. “No one likes a sore loser, ~~Elias~~.” 

~~Jonah Magnus~~ Elias Bouchard blinks away the last of the mist in his eyes, and returns to his work. The office is silent, and Elias sings no more.

  
  



End file.
